*snort*

It's asinine. I once worked phone support for a large insurance company. You'd call the 1-800 number to talk about your policy, you'd get me. By the way, thanks to my experience in the customer service field, I no longer fear Hell.

Anyway. We had a fax machine in the office. Any customer who called and wanted a form could have, theoretically, had it in hand in about 3 minutes. However, it was company policy that we NOT fax things to people, unless they were really pissed and we couldn't get them off the phone any other way.

Why? Because getting up to fax things would take us away from the phones for a whole two minutes and possibly take one less call throughout the day. It would also, presumably, lead to an unstoppable flood of customers calling to get their forms quickly. You know, once word got out that we had a fax machine and weren't scared to use it. Thus, productivity would plummet, and the whole company would go down in flames.

Or something.

The point is, making you - the customer - happy is nowhere near the list of priorities. All that matters is that you don't freak out too much and make your service rep. cry, or spend too long bitching her out. It's all about how many calls she can churn through.

However, it was company policy that we NOT fax things to people, unless they were really pissed and we couldn't get them off the phone any other way.

EXACTLY.

And I get transferred to the supervisors before I really cut loose, btw.

Your specifics aside, I'm convinced that this yelling and swearing thing may have fruitful applications in other aspects of my life.

The main trick with call centers is figuring out whether they're actual employees of the company or outsourced firms, especially offshore. In the latter case, it's pure futility to to use any aggressive techniques such as demanding to speak to a supervisor or berating the representative.

Also keep in mind that many companies domestically outsource call center operations to various prisons for cheap domestic labor. Thanks to the War on Drugs, America has found one way to offer cheap and plentiful labor to compete with cheap overseas labor.

So, you never know, you might find yourself threatening Bubba doing 20 to life on a murder rap in one of our fine correctional facilitities somewhere.

In the latter case, it's pure futility to to use any aggressive techniques such as demanding to speak to a supervisor or berating the representative.

But it sure is fun, eh? Am I right? Huh? Fun? AmIrightAmIright? Am I right?!

Y'know, Bill, if I were your mother, I'd make you stop playing with that Protein Wisdom kid. He's starting to rub off on you.

Well, once upon a time I worked in a call center for a major Baby Bell, and when they started going bezerk on me, I usually came down with a bad case of machine trouble and dropped the call. Sometimes I'd pretend to drop the call, put them on hold, and chuckle to myself as I listened to them shriek in impotent rage.

But that's just me.

Sadist.

Most ironical. Cuz like, you yelled at him, and it got a response. I think Scott Adams did a whole series of Dilbert cartoons on this once. It involved Dogbert. Man. That Dogbert. What a cut up!

Holy shit...that's funny!